Au Pair in America Host Family Profiles

APEX Host Families

Home
Au Pair in America Host Families
APEX Host Families

For qualified childcarers.... meet our great APEX families

Block

Family 1

 

A little background about our family helps explain our life and culture.  My husband and I met in 1993 and since then have spent some time living together in East Africa, in Chicago and have spent 4 years living in New Zealand.  We returned to the United States in 2000 and chose to live in Seattle in part because of its similarities to New Zealand (specifically, the water and the mountains that surround the city and the outdoor opportunities they offer, the temperate climate and the good coffee!).  We’re both 37 years old and have 2 children.  Our eldest is 4 and our youngest is 2.  We’re expecting a third child in April.  We place a lot of value on spending time together as a family and on weekends we do family outings that include activities of interest to the children.  We love going to Seattle’s open-air food markets in the summer and visiting the many parks and zoos.  There’s also many great hikes and skiing opportunities within one hour of Seattle.

 

We both value our professional careers but have worked hard to ensure that our jobs are flexible so that our family life doesn’t suffer too much.  Our family is our biggest priority.  When our third child is born in April, I will stay home from work for 6 months.  While the baby is an infant our main goal for him is that he is safe and feels secure and loved.  For this reason, we are looking for an au pair who genuinely enjoys babies and infants, who is patient and loving and who will enjoy sharing the milestones that occur in the first year of life.  This is one of our main priorities in selecting our au pair.  We want the kids to continue to be active and engaging little children.  They both have a good sense of humor and a creative imagination.

 

The schedule for our au pair will change throughout the year because of the baby.  Until he is born, the au pair will look after the children while I am at work, including taking our son to preschool every afternoon.  After the baby is born the au pair will help me with the 3 children.  When I go back to work after 6 months the au pair will be responsible for all 3 of the children – by this time our eldest will have started school and our youngest may be in preschool.

 

Our ideal childcare provider would be a family member and we see and au pair as the closest alternative because she would live as part of the family.  We like the idea of building a strong relationship with the person looking after our children.  We also like the idea of growing our children’s interest in the world, by hosting someone from outside the United States.  We think it’s important for our children to be exposed to different cultures and ideas.  Finally, we like the fact that the au pair program provides an opportunity for young people to have a one-year adventure in the United States.  We believe that is likely to result in energetic, enthusiastic candidates who will bring fresh ideas and passion to what they do.  We would like the relationship between our family and our au pair to be fun and interesting.  We look forward to getting to know our au pair and learning from each other.

 

 

Family 2

 

Hi, we have three beautiful daughters.  Our eldest is 6, the second is 4 and our youngest is 2.  Both Mom and Dad work as consultants however when our youngest was born and, realizing that the elder two were already ‘girls’ and no longer toddlers by any measure, we decided to cut back on my work hours.  As a result I am home most Mondays and Fridays.  I’m fortunate to have a good job, as we both do, and although the income was reduced, we’re happier with me spending more time with our girls.

 

Our eldest is about to start Kindergarten.  Her school schedule will be five days a week from roughly 12 noon to 3:30pm.  Our township will provide a bus pick up from the street near our home.  Our second eldest will be in her second year of preschool, which will be for three afternoons a week.  Our eldest has great verbal abilities and she is quite the leader of the pack.  All of our girls enjoy swimming, dancing, art, sleigh riding and picking flowers from our yard.  Our second eldest is a cutie pie, real sensitive and sharing.  She has an incredible infectious laugh that is just a pleasure to hear.  Our youngest is a riot.  She loves to laugh and is probably going to be our family comedian.  Although not yet two, she is into everything with her sisters.  Just becoming verbal, she is quite proud of mastering a new word, no matter that only her sisters, Mom and Dad can usually interpret it. 

 

Because of pre-school friends and living in a great neighbourhood with kids, our girls’ social lives are vastly more entertaining then ours.  They have a seemingly never ending calendar filled with lists of birthday parties to attend! 

 

Culture wise, both my husband and I are first generations born in the US, me from Polish immigrants and my husband from Italian immigrants, both with strong family orientations.  We’re fortunate to have a great big house.  An Au Pair would have a private room leading to their private bedroom, bath and sitting room.  Our former Au Pair loved the arrangement.  Specific household rules revolve around creating the best environment for our children.  A safe and loving environment tops all other criteria.  New York City is an easy 1 hour commute.  Even closer to home, Ramapo College is located across the road at the end of our street.

Block

Family 3

 

Welcome to our home.  We are brand new parents.  Our daughter was born in November and we haven’t stopped smiling ever since!  We are a very loving and close-knit family.  We like to do things together and live in an area of New York that is made up of distinct neighbourhoods with different personalities.  Our neighborhood is a community of historic city homes.  We are city people and enjoy most exploring the city.  We are very interested in the arts and like to go to museums and see dance performances.  We are not formal people but expect that those in our home treat each other respect.

 

Although we are new parents we have been together since we were teenagers.  My husband is a physician and has an office on the ground floor of our house.  He opened his office there so he could be close to his family.  I’m a journalist and write a lot from home so I can be close to the family.  I’m a native New Yorker and my Mom and Brother live about 15 minutes away.  They are enjoying being a new Grandma and Uncle and visit often.  So although you will be responsible for our daughter during the day you will not be completely on your own.

 

We need someone to help us care for our baby when we are working (whether we are working at home or away).  Besides the demanding basic care that every infant needs, we hope that the person we entrust with our child would enjoy her, play with her and challenge her mind.  We wanted an Au Pair so our daughter could be exposed to a different culture, language and customs.  In return we live in what we think is one of the world’s best cities and want to share our home so someone like you can enjoy everything New York has to offer.

 

We hope that your year with us will be rewarding for both you and our daughter.

 

Welcome!

 

 

Family 4

 

Welcome to the family!  It is our pleasure to host a guest from another country into our home.  We live in North Carolina and we are a family of five members.  We’ll be moving into our new home next month and have a separate room and bath that will be designated for our Au Pair guest.  It is our hope that the Au Pair experience will be mutually enriching to both our family as well as our guest.  Since the au pair will be living with us for a full year, it will be our primary goal to make our guest feel welcome, as she will essentially become a member of our family.

 

My wife and I have been married for 13 years and we have three children, aged 4, 7 and 9.  Overall, the children are healthy and lead active, normal lives with school and extracurricular activities.  It is our goal as parents to have our children live balanced lives by instilling in each of them the values of education, religion, friendships, physical health and respect for each other.  I am a high school teacher and have, when I was younger, lived with a host family in Japan for two years.  I therefore understand trials and tribulations of living in a foreign country, most notably the language and cultural differences.  It’s our hope that the au pair will feel comfortable with the dynamics of our family as she continues to refine her English speaking ability and learns the ways of American culture.  My wife is a family practice physician and is currently practicing medicine in a local clinic.  There is no doubt she is a busy Mom as she juggles the day-to-day responsibilities of home and work. 

 

Our eldest child is in the fourth grade.  She loves to read, play the piano and is in an accelerated math class at school.  She has a network of friends in our neighbourhood and likes to play with her doll collection with her friends.  Our middle child is in the second grade.  He is filled with energy and is typically going a mile a minute.  He enjoys reading and watching films.  He’s involved in little league baseball during the spring months and enjoys swimming at our neighbourhood pool with his friends.  Our youngest child is in preschool.  He will attend kindergarten next year and go to the same school with his older brother and sister.  He is creative.  He loves to draw pictures and color and he asks us several times to spell words that later appear in friendly messages in his greeting cards!

 

We would expect the au pair to assist with morning departure events including leading the children to the bus stop for school.  We would also want her to greet the children at the bus stop upon their return and assist in after school activities until we get home.  During the day the au pair would wash and fold the children’s laundry and straighten their rooms if needed.  Most of the mornings and afternoons are free for the au pair seeing as no one would be home from 6:30am to 2:00pm.  An important expectation for our Au Pair is the ability and license to drive.  Our children typically have after school activities at different time of the year including girl and Cub Scout meetings, little league games and swimming lessons.  We would hope that the au pair could assist us in taking our children to these varied after school activities.  We would also like if our au pair would monitor our children on average one day a week for two-three hours in the evening to allow my wife and I to go out to dinner or see a movie.  This would typically happen on a Friday or Saturday night but would not be every weekend.

 

We would love for the au pair to share something about herself either through family pictures or stories.  Perhaps she can teach us basic expressions and greetings in her native language.  Our children would thoroughly enjoy this type of interaction with our Au Pair.  We’ve heard positive comments about the Au Pair Program and I truly feel our children will benefit immensely through this culturally enriching experience.

Block

Family 5

 

Hello!  Our home is in the modern city of Sterling, Virginia, near Washington DC.  Both my husband and I have about a 15 minute commute to work every day and work a normal 40 hour week without much overtime. Our son is 5 years old and goes to kindergarten about 5 minutes away from where his Dad works.  My husband drops him off in the morning and I pick him up, so we don’t need an au pair to do this.  I’m 9 months pregnant with our daughter, so the au pair would mainly be responsible for the care of the baby, in addition to watching over our son on his days that school is not is session.

 

Our family is very close and we do a lot of things together.  Our son loves to read and learn new things and is very active after school.  He goes to sports lessons and attends after school activities.  He has wanted a little sister for over a year now, so we are happy his wish came true.

 

Our ideal au pair must have experience with and a sincere interest in infants and school-aged children.  Our au pair should be responsible, active, kind and willing to assimilate into our family and community.  We will need our au pair to work 45 hours a week.  The typical schedule will be 7am to 3:30pm but flexibility with scheduling is needed.  Responsibilities would involve changing the baby’s diapers, feeding the baby, washing the baby’s clothes and the general care of the baby.

 

There are many activities for an au pair in our area.  There are a lot of shopping areas, parks, restaurants, sports facilities and tons of other entertainment.  A lot of the activities are within walking distance.  There are also many colleges and universities where you could enrol in educational and/or cultural courses.  The Community College is a mile from our home.

 

We hope our au pair has similar interests and look forward to meeting you!